On Wed, 02 Jan 2013 22:15:08 -0500, Bill
wrote:

On 1/2/2013 1:58 PM, rec.travel.cruises wrote:

Bill, It is impolite to be obnoxious. The review is our experience
and perception of the cruise. It was not posted for you to accuse us
of lying. We have been on 45 plus cruises over 30 years. We have
nothing to gain from posting a review. It is hard work and we do so
for others to have a heads up.

Sorry you did not approve of my post. You made some claims that seem
false, and two other posters have said that the crew DOES know who has
automatic tipping. You also never explained your concern about people
buying the extra-charge entrees in the MDR. You made a claim that the
excursion was overpriced and used to be $45 but when I pointed out that
the provider charges $64 you didn't respond. You've been on so many
cruises, you should know better than to expect the excursions to be as
cheap as the provider. If you want to give people a heads up and present
your opinions as fact, then what's wrong with someone else questioning
those facts?

I took the remark about the excursion to have been based on a cruise
taken a long time ago. Prices have gone up. I didn't find it
necessary to complain about the time frame of the price.

There was a lot in this review which was extremely helpful to someone
who is going to cruise on RCCL. This is one of our least favorite
cruise lines and we only cruise on it when there is no other ship
going out of Baltimore. I was interested in the extra price food in
the main dining room which I would find to be not appropriate and
would not like.

As for the tipping - I think possibly either the crew member
questioned didn't speak good enough English to know what the passenger
was actually asking, or else they wanted an extra tip above the
minimum and were feigning ignorance of how it worked. As I said, I
did not like the envelope system and so I asked a lot of questions.
And it took a LOT of questions for me to find out approximately what
was going on.

In the old days, you put actual money in the envelopes. Back in 2007
when we first cruised on RCCL, and first encountered this system. I
said what if I got the slips in the wrong envelope? They said it
didn't matter, that the person would still get the right amount. I
asked if I could tip one person more than the amount and not tip
someone (like the head waiter) at all? They said the amount could not
be adjusted. So my conclusion was that the tip envelopes were just
window dressing, and did not mean anything at all.